By Tim Stannard

1) Fighting talk from Unai ahead of Barca battle

An aching void in all our sad, miserable lives is about to be filled again. Champions League football is back to color in the empty blanks of darkness. Proper Champions League football. Not that group stuff where everyone has to pretend that it is great to see sides like BATE in the hustle and bustle, but won’t actually make the effort to watch them.

The first round of Last 16 ties is upon us like a rainbow of sporting joy. There are two games on Tuesday, Benfica hosting Borussia Dortmund and a whopper between PSG and Barcelona. Whilst Barca make the short trip to the French capital on Monday, Unai Emery has been talking ahead of the game and it was a speech to the media all feisty and furious, with the Spaniard claiming that his team will not be kneeling before Barcelona’s Zod.

"We don’t feel inferior to anyone,” boomed Emery, whose team are unbeaten in all competitions in 2017 and has Edinson Cavani matching his countryman, Luis Suarez, in terms of goal-scoring gumption.

Tune into the XTRA from 7PM ET / 4PM PT followed by the Locker Room for a full build-up of a very tasty week of Champions League action. And the lucky people of Canada can see the clash live on Tuesday from 2:45PM ET / 11:45AM PT.

2) City look for second spot with ‘new Messi’ up front

But before everyone gets too ahead of themselves, it’s worth remembering that Monday sees quite a bit of business to attend to. In the Premier League, Manchester City has the chance to sneak into second spot after Spurs did a Spurs over the weekend and lost to Liverpool. Pep Guardiola’s Merry Men are away to a Bournemouth team that are capable of playing some tidy football but have been on a rotten run and without a league win in five.

City will be looking for Gabriel Jesus to continue a remarkable start to his Premier League career with the forward already bagging three goals in three appearances. And this is just the beginning says a former Brazilian great, Ronaldinho, who claims that his countryman can become the best player in the world - “he has all the abilities to make that happen."

3) Monday stand-off between two Serie-A super powers

Serie A is going out with a bang this weekend with a clash between two big names of Italian football looking to hang on to the frenzied chase for this season’s Champions League places. Lazio are currently in sixth and hosting a Milan side that is weirdly fragile at the moment, all be it, enjoying the buzz of a morale-boosting midweek win against Bologna when down to nine men. Both teams are still light years behind Juventus who are currently leading the way at the top of the table with a seven-point gap over Roma.

That clash is live on beIN SPORTS from 2:40PM ET / 11:40PM PT. But if something Spanish is nagging at your sporting stomach then tune into a tale of two cities in La Liga with Eibar looking for an unlikely European spot against a Granada side just hoping to stay up.

4) Dortmund accept stand closure for RB Leipzig rancour

Borussia Dortmund’s Signal-Iduna-Park is going to be a peculiar place on Saturday with the legendary 25,000 capacity south stand completely empty for the visit of Wolfsburg in a Bundesliga clash. The club has decided to accept a punishment handed down by the German football association after misconduct from some Dortmund supporters during a recent game against visiting RB Leipzig.

Banners were held up insulting the visiting club, including one calling for the club’s sporting director to hang himself. Plastic cups were thrown onto the pitch and Leipzig players were bothered by laser pointers. There were further more violent incidents outside of the ground. RB Leipzig has courted controversy in Germany with some supporters claiming that the Red Bull-backed institution is apparently not a ‘real’ team.

5) Serena Williams on top of the world

The WTA Qatar Total Open is underway on beIN SPORTS screens live every day from 7AM ET / 4AM PT with world number two, Angelique Kerber in action. The figure who moved above her in the rankings after the Australian Open is busy enjoying the happiest phase of her life instead. That’s according to the mother of Serena Williams, Oracene Price.

The combination of getting engaged and 23 Grand Slam titles has apparently done the trick - "she's at the top of her game now because she's smarter and has more experience."

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The life philosophy of Sports Burst is that if you are not upsetting someone, then you are not trying hard enough. SB is a daily trawl and troll through the morning's sports news to bring you fact-nuggets to make you both smile and swear. Hopefully at the same time.